Julie Cohen's latest

My friend and fellow M&B writer, Julie Cohen, has a new release out -- Delicious available at all good bookstores such as WH Smiths, Easons and Borders as well as Mills and Boon online and Amazon. It is the tale of a celebrity chef and the English teacher who brings him to his knees.

Last weekend when my back was really playing up and my dh decided that rather than looking white and moving slow, I was spending time resting, I spent several happy hours reading it.

I was interested to read the book for several reasons. first, I knew it was a book she had written the first draft of early in her career, second it was set in a school, third it has Ewan MacGregor as hero inspiration material and finally live chickens play an important role.

While many may think Julie's inspiration was Jamie Olvier's assault on the poor state of cookery and school dinners in Britain's state schools, she actually came up with the idea long before Jamie highlighted the problem. But because of the nature of publishing, the book has just been published this month.

It is a cracking escapist read. I enjoyed the romance between the two protagonists, the well drawn setting of restaurants and schools as well as the chickens. And by the time I had finished, my back was feeling better.

If you want to learn more about how Julie wrote the book, revised, revised itagain and finally sold it, it is worth visiting her blog. It gives a lot of insight into the process she used and why sometimes rewriting can take a lot longer than writing something new.